Meet our speakers
Ina May Gaskin
Ina May Gaskin, MA, CPM, is founder and director of the Farm Midwifery Center, located near Summertown, Tennessee. Founded in 1971, by 1996, the Farm Midwifery Center had handled more than 2600 births, with remarkably good outcomes. Ms. Gaskin herself has attended more than 1200 births. She is author of Spiritual Midwifery, now in its fourth edition. For twenty-two years she published Birth Gazette, a quarterly covering health care, childbirth and midwifery issues. Her new book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth was released 4 March 2003 by Bantam/Dell, a division of Random House. She has lectured all over the world at midwifery conferences and at medical schools, both to students and to faculty. She was President of Midwives’ Alliance of North America from 1996 to 2002. In 1997, she received the ASPO/Lamaze Irwin Chabon Award and the Tennessee Perinatal Association Recognition Award. In 2003 she was chosen as Visiting Fellow of Morse College, Yale University.
Ms. Gaskin has lectured widely to midwives and physicians throughout the world. Her promotion of a low-intervention but extremely effective method for dealing with one of the most-feared birth complications, shoulder dystocia, has resulted in that method being adopted by a growing number of practitioners. The Gaskin maneuver is the first obstetrical procedure to be named for a midwife. Her statistics for breech deliveries and her teaching video on the subject have helped to spark a reappraisal of the policy of automatically performing cesarean section for all breech babies. As the occurrence of vaginal breech births has declined over the last 25 years, the knowledge and skill required for such births have come close to extinction.
Ms. Gaskin’s center is noted for its low rates of intervention, morbidity and mortality despite the inclusion of many vaginally delivered breeches, twin and grand multiparas. Their statistics were published in “The Safety of Home Birth: The Farm Study,” authored by A. Mark Durand, American Journal of Public Health, March, 1992, Vol. 82, 450-452. She was featured in Salon magazine’s feature “Brilliant Careers” in the June 1, 1999 edition.
Dr. Tami Michele DO OB/GYN
Tami Michele, DO, OB/GYN, from Gerber Memorial Hospital in Michigan graduated from Michigan State University after raising four children. She was a Bradley Childbirth Instructor, Doula, and assistant to a homebirth midwife prior to medical school. Tami has also traveled to Africa to provide surgical and obstetrical services for the women of Togo. As a current member of the CIMS leadership team, her goals are to make natural hospital birth, VBAC, and homebirth safe options for all women.
Pakou Her
Pakou is a second generation Asian American of Hmong descent. She is the daughter of refugees, sister to four older brothers, spouse to Nate, and mother to Lola. PaKou works as a community and institutional organizer. Currently, she is the director of the Leadership Development Institute at Crossroads Anti-Racism Oranizing and Training, an organization working with institutions to build racial justice and create long term, systemic and cultural change. She believes that access to natural birth, particularly for women of color, restores humanity and disrupts gender, class, racial and sexual oppresion.
Denise "Nadah" Cartmill, Birth Doula/CMT/CBE
Nadah has been a theraputic massage practitioner since 1985, receiving training and certification at Heartland School of Massage, Kansas City, MO in the time-honored tradition of apprenticeship with mentor, Necia Gamby, LMT. She completed additional studies and certification in alternative therapies with teachers including George Moon, Mark Tracy, James Waslaski, Dr. Myk Hungerford and Ralph Stevens, as well as, herbal medicine and the wise-woman tradition with Susun S. Weed, Zen Therapy with Dub Leigh and the Mayan Uterine/Abdominal Massage technique with Dr. Rosita Arvigo. Prior to her studies and interest in wholisitic healing, she began her healing path as a nursing assistant at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexingtion, KY (1976) and certified as an EMT through KU Medical Center, KCKS. (1982).
During over 25 years in practice, she has worked in salon spas, chiropractic offices, private practice and helped to establish theraputic massage at Saint Luke's Hospital, the first hospital-based program in Kansas City, MO. She also helped to develop curriculum and taught with the Johnson County Community College Massage Therapy program.
After numerous massage clients began asking her to provide labor support she became trained as a birth doula and childbirth educator with the Academy of Childbirth Educators & Labor Support Professionals in Olathe, KS. (1997) With over twelve years of hands-on birthwork she uses her knowledge of touch, aromatherapy and herbal information to help women and their partners achieve their goals in childbirth. Her approach is to support women in such a way that they have confidence in the process and their own ability to give birth.
